[access-uk] Re: CDEX and normalising
- From: "Tristram Llewellyn" <tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:38:24 -0000
"I wish I could get my head round some of this stuff the way some of you
guys can."
It helps if you have emerged from some kind of technical background in
audio which at least for some portion of my life past and present I
have, but it is not impossible to undertstand with some effort.
Regards.
Tristram Llewellyn
tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Technical Support
Sight and Sound Technology
-----Original Message-----
From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Andy Collins
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 3:31 PM
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [access-uk] Re: CDEX and normalising
Tristram, I was hoping for a more thorough explanation than this :] I
wish I
could get my head round some of this stuff the way some of you guys can.
Thanks for the explanation, I always try to achieve the best sound
[subjective I know] but because I have some high frequency deafness, I
can't
trust my ears to know what others hear that I do not! -
Andy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tristram Llewellyn" <tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 2:45 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: CDEX and normalising
| The term "normalisation" when used in its proper sense has nothing to
do
| with making music tracks apparantly have the same volume level. I am
| not sure how CDEX implements the feature you speak of, I haven't used
it
| for a few years now.
|
| The process of normalisation is used in order to optomise the apparant
| level of audio to the maximum extent allowed by whatever bit depth 16
or
| 24bits of the digital audio path. What normalisation generally does
is
| look for the loudest parts of audio material and arrange things so
that
| those land at the top or near to the top of the 16bit audio range
| without causing digital clipping. There are two types of
normalisation
| and one thus described is peak level normalisation which is perhaps
the
| most common. Normalisation is desirable because it helps maximise the
| maximum dynamic range possible whilst reducing to a minium
quantisation
| errors at low level.
|
| However the problem may be that you can normalise two tracks so they
| peak at the same level but the apparant volume still seems to be
| different because of the differences in the material which mean that
the
| average level of the sound of one of the tracks is higher. It is most
| likely that the one with the higher average level will be determined
by
| the human listener as the loudest. This can also be made to happen
| artificially during TV ad breaks and you find yourself wanting to turn
| down the sound. In order to catch our attention commercials heavy
heavy
| audio compression applied to the sound to reduce the size of audio
peaks
| and turning up the makeup gain for the lower level signal so that the
| average level becomes higher whilst the differences between the
highest
| level of sound and lowest is less, result, something that sounds
louder
| and more exciting.
|
| In such cases as yours would would either need the help of software or
| use your own ears to compare two or more audio programs and even out
the
| difference beween them as an average level because most likely the
| normalisation process will not help. Also if you are sourcing from
| commercial CDs this process will have already taken place. A breed of
| individual in the audio industry known as a mastering engineer will be
| making sure that all the tracks of an album sound like they fit
together
| and make sure the levels appear to the human listener to be roughly
the
| same. There are all sorts of other things they do to given an abum
its
| sound if that is the kind of project they are working on. I know
iTunes
| certainly a facility called sound check which evens out levels between
| tracks in your music library but I don't it does it particularly well
| come to think of it.
|
| To add further fuel to the fire the human ear is not completely linear
| therefore what a machine or software "hears" (I used the term
advisedly
| here) may not be what a human perceives. The vast majority of all the
| acoustic energy in most pop music certainly is contained in the lower
| end of the spectrum, thus a regeah track may sound about the same
level
| as something mush less bassy but the former still has more acoustic
| energy in it whilst still sounding quieter and register a higher audio
| level (as measured).
|
| Hope this helps.
|
| Regards.
|
| Tristram Llewellyn
| tristram.llewellyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| Technical Support
| Sight and Sound Technology
|
| -----Original Message-----
| From: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf
| Of Andy Collins
| Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 11:15 AM
| To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
| Subject: [access-uk] CDEX and normalising
|
| Hi all
|
| Within CDEX settings, are tabs for normalisation, will this just make
| all
| tracks have the same volume, in other words, when ripping tracks, does
| it
| equalise the volume so that some tracks are not louder or quieter than
| others? Am I right in thinking it doesn't affect the sound quality?
|
| Thanks -
|
| Andy
|
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